


Dream a Dream and See

by Kassi



Series: Dream of Now, Dream of Then [2]
Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Drama, Friendship, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kassi/pseuds/Kassi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to ‘Just a Dream Away.’ In the ever-changing world of the Eternal Calm, Auron and Rikku have become sphere hunters. Set between FFX & FFX-2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What the Hell Happened?

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER** : Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and their characters, places, and situations are (C) copyright 2001, 2003 Square Enix Ltd. They are reproduced here for non-commercial entertainment.
> 
> Almost all of the Al Bhed words in this fic are mild swearing, so you don’t have know Al Bhed to get the gist of what’s going on. But for those of you who really wanna know, there’s a translator [here](http://stefangagne.com/albhed.html).

Listen to my story.

There may not be much time left.

In fact, it may already be too late.

* * *

Hard to say when the story started. There are obvious beginnings, such as when Yu Yevon created Sin, a creature that would ravage this world for a thousand years, aided by a network of lies perpetuated by Yevon’s followers.

There’s the day I was made a monk of Yevon, pledging to uphold the teachings and defend Spira in Yevon’s name.

I cannot forget when I met Lord Braska, nor the day I resolved to accompany him on his pilgrimage to defeat Sin, nor the day we bailed a drunkard named Jecht out of jail to become Braska’s second guardian.

Yet this story would have been a much different story if not for the day everything changed, on the south shore of the Moonflow, when Jecht attacked a petite Al Bhed spying on our pilgrimage in the bushes, and she kicked his ass.

We had our third guardian. Most people don’t know this part of the story. Along the way Rikku also became a summoner, unheard of for an Al Bhed, a user of machines forbidden by Yevon. She turned everything I thought I knew about the Al Bhed on its ear. Even more unexpectedly, we became friends. We fought Sin side by side, that day that Lord Braska and Jecht sacrificed themselves.

She saved my life one final time and then vanished before my eyes.

* * *

“Auron, listen carefully,” Rikku said in a rush. “I need you to remember what happened, so you can tell the next summoner who comes this way. I need you to remember that the final summoning is a lie, and that the only way to end the tyranny is to defeat the evil within Sin. You have to crack its shell and go inside! Do you understand?”

I didn’t. “But… you will tell them… Lord Braska charged us both to find a way!”

“Listen to me!” she said, grabbing the lapels of my robe. “This is very important. I can’t stay. I’m out of time. Never forget what I’ve said to you today. It’s our only chance.” She half-turned. “Just another minute, please…!” she said, as if to someone else. I glanced around, confused, and saw no one else in the empty Chamber of the Fayth where we had just defeated Yunalesca.

She tugged harder on my jacket, her voice even faster and shriller now. Her urgency frightened me. “Don’t forget to take care of Yuna and Tidus! Jecht will help you get to Zanarkand! One more thing, and please remember this!” She had to pause to take a breath, then hurried on. “Ten years from now, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a friend of yours will be missing. Come to this very place,” she let go of me to jab a finger down at the floor, “and use the potion that you find here on your friend…”

Abruptly her body seemed to dissolve in my grasp. Later, I went over that horrifying moment, my useless hands grabbing at an image fading like a dream, but I could remember no pyreflies. I asked myself, again and again, _Was she unsent?_ My heart said no, but I wondered—was that because I wanted to believe I could find her again?

“Remember…!” her voice echoed as if from underwater as she vanished before my horrified eyes.

“Wait!” I screamed. “Rikku! Don’t leave me alone!”

And then I was alone. I had lost all three of my closest friends, to forces beyond my control and comprehension, in the space of a few hours. I felt powerless. My grief mingled with anger and shame at my own failure.

In the ten long years that followed I took up three hobbies in earnest: sake, learning the Al Bhed language to search in vain for Rikku, and finding out what the hell had happened that day.


	2. Ten Years Later

How long since I had been to the Moonflow? My travels didn’t often bring me here. Memories of that day had not faded like the years in between. When I saw who Tidus was talking to at the south bank that day, I stopped in my tracks. It felt like that sensation of missing a step, watching the ground rushing up. My skin crawled.

“Pleased to meet you!” the yellow-haired young woman chirped. “I’m Rikku!”

I pushed forward through Lady Yuna’s guardians, unseeing. She looked up at me with so-familiar green swirling eyes.

“Rikku?” I said. “Is it you?”

She looked surprised. “Do I know you?”

“Don’t you remember?” I said.

She shook her head. “I’ve never met you before in my life.”

I reared back as if she’d physically slapped me, some strange noise escaping me. My mind raced as I searched her face. _How could this be?_ She frowned at my scrutiny.

I only barely heard Tidus’s assertion that Rikku had helped him some time ago, on first arriving in Spira. The reactions of the others flowed over and around me.

_She doesn’t look a day older_ , I noticed as I watched her, Lulu, and Yuna withdraw a short distance away to talk. After that initial shock I felt able to contain my emotions again, to draw into my own thoughts. I was used to doggedly pursuing the truth, watching, waiting, listening, asking subtle questions. Those skills that had found for me the truth of Jecht’s and Braska’s fates, and that of Spira, would surely be my best bet at unraveling the mystery of Rikku.

Yuna approached me, looking nervous. “Sir Auron,” she said. “I would like Rikku to be my guardian.”

My smile shocked her. I stepped over to Rikku, who lowered her head as I approached. Trying to hide telltale Al Bhed eyes.

“What an… excellent idea,” I understated.

Her head whipped up in shock.

* * *

With so many guardians attending Yuna’s pilgrimage, I didn’t get a chance to speak to her privately until Guadosalam. In the meantime I watched her, noticing her eyes pass me over as an apparent stranger.

“How old are you?” I said to her.

“I’m sixteen!” she said, full of pride and defiance.

“Mm,” I said, to mask rather visceral alarm in me. “Have you ever been to the Zanarkand Ruins?”

“Huh? No, never. Nobody goes there anymore,” she said.

“I see.” She was telling the truth, I could see that. I have moved among deceivers and the self-deceived, and this was pure, bewildering honesty. I knew there had to be more to this story.

“Why are you asking me all this?”

“I was curious.” I turned and walked away.

* * *

Rikku was not the only puzzle to be solved, and the question of Sin’s permanent defeat preoccupied us all after Yuna’s pilgrimage ended in Zanarkand, with the revelation of truths long hidden. There was much to discuss. Some part of me felt something missing. When I realized how long Rikku’s chirpy, brash voice had been absent I felt a wash of concern.

“Where’s Rikku?” I interrupted the discussion in the stateroom. Bewildered stares fixed on me.

“Uh… I dunno,” said Tidus. “She hasn’t been around for a while. Said something about her celestial weapon last time, didn’t she?”

The others shrugged.

“I think she was bored, ya?” said Wakka. “So, we figure out what we’re gonna do, and then we go pick her up.”

“I’d better make sure she’s all right,” I said, more to myself, as concern turned to alarm. Something was wrong. I couldn’t remember when she’d left. I headed to the bridge to see her father.

“ _Frana ec ouin tyikrdan?_ ” I said. “ _E’s luhlanhat ypuid ran._ ”

“She… she’s out killing things, she said,” said Cid. “Or maybe she’s still looking for the sigil to unlock that Godhand of hers.”

“Godhand?” I said weakly.

The Godhand. The weapon she’d wowed myself, Jecht, and Braska with ten years ago on our pilgrimage, far stronger than any of the weapons Rikku had been using since this second meeting.

“How long has she been gone?” I said, more sharply than I intended.

“Hmm,” said Cid, “last time we dropped her off in the Calm Lands was, oh, about two days ago.”

“Two _days_?” I said. “And you haven’t heard from her since?”

“Hey, she can take care of herself,” said Cid.

Godhand. Calm Lands. The memories of ten years ago slammed into my brain like a Sin-induced tsunami.

“ _…Ten years from now, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a friend of yours will be missing…_ ”

I whirled and almost knocked into Yuna, right behind me. She backed up.

“What’s the date?” I said.

“D-date?” she said.

“Yes! What day is today? Doesn’t _anyone_ know?!” I snapped, angry at how slow I’d been to notice everything around me. How could I have forgotten? Why hadn’t I written this down years ago, checked a calendar, knowing that ten years had passed? I’d been thinking about it so much, especially since seeing Rikku again.

“It’s the twenty-third day,” said Brother’s voice from the cockpit behind me, “of the third month.”

“Shit!” I turned to Cid. “Take me to Yevon Dome, now!”

“Hey, hold your horses! There’s nowhere to land there,” said Cid.

“Then take me to Zanarkand! _Hurry_!”

* * *

The longest run in my life. Even now it hurts to think about how close I came to not getting there on time. All that helplessness, sluggishness, uselessness I had felt losing my friends ten years ago flooded through me again, as if I was truly back there on that nightmare day of Braska’s final battle against Sin. I couldn’t hear the voices of my companions, couldn’t see them. All I could see were the endless halls and obstacles between me and the empty Chamber of the Fayth in Yevon Dome. Increasingly certain of what I would find there.

Even so it still gave me a nasty turn when my boots pounded up the steps and I saw Rikku lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Right where she had vanished out of my arms, ten years ago.

Except now there was a flask beside her, with a potion. As I’d been thinking of little else but her last words to me all the way here, I knew what to do. I snatched up her and the flask and poured the potion, with adrenalin-shaking hands, bit by bit into her slack mouth. I didn’t bother to try to speak, catching my breath as I dribbled it painstakingly between her lips.

I felt the past all around me in that room. The way I was holding her, and kneeling. Ten years had been swept aside. My memories felt as immediate in my body as they had when they’d first happened. It felt as though Yunalesca had only just died and been sent. The only thing missing from the scene was Braska’s staff, stowed up on the airship with the rest of my meager possessions.

“Rikku?” I said, shaking her. “Rikku!”

She remained steadfastly limp. I shook her again, not knowing what else to do.

“Rikku? _Rikku_?”

She twitched. It felt like an electric shock to my bones, a glimmer of hope. “Come on, wake up, Rikku!”

Her swirling green eyes opened, blinked, focused on mine. She convulsed in my arms. I squeezed her.

“Shh, it’s all right,” I said, more out of hope than certainty.

She shook her head and pushed me off. I watched in concern as she sat up and looked all around.

She laughed hoarsely, ending in a cough. She reached up to her head, then froze, staring at her hand. Her head flipped up. As she scrambled to her feet I reached for her arm, and she flapped a hand at me. I backed off.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“I’m…” She spun and stared frowning intently into my face. Her face split in a grin. “You remembered!”

Guilt wracked me as I realized how I almost hadn’t, how she might have lain here dying and forgotten on this floor. “I almost didn’t. It’s been… ten years.”

“But only a few minutes, for me,” she chirped, and then flung her arms around me. “Thank you for coming back for me,” she hissed in my ear.

I hesitantly returned her embrace, afraid to shatter this dream of reunion, one I’d wrenched awake from so many disappointing nights after losing her, Jecht, and Braska. She pulled back and looked up at me.

“You… remember me now?” I said.

“Yeah, you’ve finally caught up to me… or I’ve caught up to you. I’m not sure.”

I inhaled, my hands squeezing her involuntarily in relief. This was real, this time. My friend—all of her—was back. Questions spilled out of me. “How did you do it? And why?”

“Do what?” said Tidus. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“I prayed to the fayth,” she said to me, making the sign of prayer. “…Hey. Let’s go find Sin. I just had this great idea on how to beat him.”

_Yes, that’s Rikku. As if not a day has passed._ I embraced her shoulders with a laugh as we strolled across the chamber, out of a victory ten years ago, her bewildering miracle of time travel, and my miracle of having reunited with my friend. Everything in between didn’t matter, suddenly.

“So what’s your idea?” I murmured.

“Well, first I gotta go to Remiem Temple, ’cause I heard they have this _gelg-ycc_ aeon there…”

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ going on a pilgrimage now?”

“Hey, there’s an idea! But where the heck am I gonna find guardians to go with me?”

“Ahem.”

“I mean _good_ guardians.”

“Hey!” I swatted her on the rear, just as we’d done to one another childishly ten years ago. She laughed and took to her heels.

I chased her, young again and still old enough to feel profound gratitude at what I’d regained.


	3. The End of the Dream

Zanarkand.

I had no doubt of what I was seeing—an empty Zanarkand, frozen in time. The Zanarkand of Jecht’s mind, made real here, deep inside Sin. Was it a dream? Was it real? It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the man standing in the middle of the pavilion, his bare back to me. That twisting feeling of having ten years pushed out of my mind came back. I knew even before he turned around that he wouldn’t look a day older.

Unlike Rikku, he _had_ lived those ten years, in this strange existence I couldn’t comprehend even with all I’d learned about Sin.

“Jecht!” Rikku cried, pushing past us to run to him. He swiveled. Escalating levels of shock registered on his face as she threw herself on him in an effusive hug.

“I thought you were gone forever,” she cried. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!”

He did not embrace her in return but patiently pushed her to arm’s length. I came closer.

“Somehow I knew you’d get here, girl,” he said, “but I didn’t expect this. You haven’t aged.” He reached up to touch her face but didn’t quite. “You didn’t go and die on me, didja?”

She shook her head. “You haven’t aged either, old man.”

He sighed. “Being Sin does that to a person.”

“But you’re still here. You’re still you, even inside all this junk. Why?” She whirled on me, hastily wiping her face on her targe. “You knew it would be like this!”

“…I… had a suspicion,” I said haltingly. “I hoped not.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean? Jecht’s alive! Maybe we can still save him.”

“Rikku…” said Jecht, and Rikku started to turn, but stilled when Tidus said the same thing, much more sharply.

“Rikku,” said Tidus. “How do you know my old man?”

“She’s an old friend of mine,” Jecht dismissed Tidus’s question. “As to your ideas of saving me, Rikki, I suggest you stop thinking of me as the man you knew. That man is dead, just as dead as Lord Braska.”

“I still see the guardian who was my friend, in your eyes. Oh, Jecht. I forgive you. You can come with us. You can leave this!” She reached out to him, but he didn’t take her hand.

“Auron… ” Jecht’s pained gaze shifted.

I stepped forward. “He wants you to defeat him,” I told her. “You’re the only one who can.”

“No,” she said. “I’m here to fight Yu Yevon. Once he’s defeated, we can take you back to Spira.”

“Once Yevon’s defeated,” said Tidus, “the dream will end.”

She whirled. “What dream?”

“The dream of the fayth,” said Tidus. “They have been sleeping for hundreds of years, dreaming of Zanarkand and its people as they were a thousand years ago. My old man was brought out of that dream to help Spira. So was I.”

This threw me. “…What?” I said.

“That’s right,” said Tidus. “I’m not real. Once Yevon is defeated, the fayth will stop dreaming and go to their rest. Jecht and I will vanish.”

“What?! No!” cried Rikku. My disbelief matched hers, but I remained closed in my own thoughts, looking on Jecht’s son. I looked from him to Yuna, who had turned several shades paler.

I didn’t want this. I had prepared as well as I could to see Jecht again, and lose him once more. Part of me knew some of us might not survive, but not for this reason. It felt so wrong.

“You don’t have a choice, darlin’,” said Jecht. I turned to see Jecht cupping Rikku’s tear-streaked face with his hands. “All you can do is set us all free. Me, my boy, all the fayth who are so tired.”

“You’re important to people! You can’t just be a dream!” Rikku cried out.

“It’s time for the dream to end.” Jecht’s body swelled and darkened. “I can’t hear the Hymn so well anymore. Pretty soon, I’m gonna be Sin, completely. I’m glad you’re here to do this. I trust you. Don’t hold back, girl. Hit me with all you’ve got.”

I reached up for my sword, grateful to pull my mind away from the distressing reunion and revelations. It was time to fight.

Rikku shook her head, but didn’t get a chance to protest further.

“You’d better. I’ll kill you.” Jecht’s voice grew guttural, and I slid into a fighting stance. “I’m… sorry.” His skin burst into a bright red hue, emblazoned with his tattooed emblem in a glowing flame.

Rikku still hadn’t budged, hadn’t lifted her weapon, crying, shaking her head.

“Rikku!” I snapped.

Miraculously, that was all it took to arouse the fighting wrath in her I knew so well. Her single-minded fury swirled through her as she hit Braska’s final aeon with summons, with spells, with vicious strikes of the Godhand. Next to her rage I almost wasn’t needed, but I would not have left her to this battle alone. I owed it to Jecht as much as I did to myself and her to see this through.

Pyreflies exploded around us. Rikku cried out softly and dove through the colored lights to kneel beside the body lying on the ground. Tidus fell to his knees with her. I stood behind and sheathed my sword.

“You… both of you… crybabies,” Jecht said, with some effort. “You’re always crying, boy.”

“I hate you, Dad,” sobbed Tidus.

“I love you, son,” said Jecht.

Rikku buried her head in her arms. I laid a hand on her shoulder. 

Tidus got to his feet, trembling.

“I hope you’ve still got some of that Al Bhed temper stored up in you, girl, and I hope you’ve still got some hatred bottled,” said Jecht.

“Right,” said Tidus. “We’ve got a job to do, don’t we?”

“Good,” said Jecht, looking past Rikku’s silence at his son. “That’s right.”

“You know…” said Tidus, “for the first time, I’m glad… to have you as my father.”

“Sir Jecht…” Yuna’s voice was distant, almost foreign. “I should…”

“No, Yuna, there’s no time!” Jecht’s voice was suddenly urgent. I reached for my sword again, instinctively. Roaring, bubbling, underwater sounds were echoing from all around us. I kept my hand on my oblivious young friend as I glanced around.

“You stay away!” Tidus yelled at the swirling forces around us.

“Rikku.” Jecht grasped Rikku’s arm. “You know what to do.”

“This is the second time I’ve lost you,” she mumbled, her breath hitching.

“I promise, it’s the last, darlin’. Call the aeons. Call them,” he said.

“No…” She leaned in to hug him. “I can’t say goodbye again. I’m losing everyone. I tried so hard. I didn’t make any difference. I’m still losing everyone!” I squeezed her shoulder. I knew her grief, but my attention was half on the chaos erupting around us.

“Shut up, girl, and do your job! You’re Braska’s daughter’s guardian, and a summoner of Spira! Do everyone proud! Especially me!” He shoved her away with all his strength. I let her go and drew my sword, preparing once more for battle.

“You cantankerous old man!” she screamed, and burst into sobs.

“No, now, don’t you cry. Get angry! Fight, girl!” He dissolved into pyreflies, spiraling up in colored light. Rikku grasped Braska’s old, smooth, worn staff in her hands. I saw her visibly calm as she began the sending.

I heard her whispering to herself as she whirled but couldn’t make out the words. The final battle was at hand.

* * *

If I had heard what she said that day, maybe I would have anticipated what was to come. Maybe what she uttered was a clue.

I was just so damn happy to have my friend back that I didn’t want to believe that something might be wrong. I saw her as I wanted to: thrilled as I was to be together again.

I failed to notice that her laugh seemed increasingly hollow, and sometimes her smile didn’t reach her eyes.


	4. The Legendary Guardian

“Kilika’s nice this time of year,” I said reflectively, over the sounds of the nearby battle. A fiend screamed.

“Mm,” said Rikku.

“ _Help_ me, clumsy fool!” a woman’s voice called distantly, accompanied by a growl from the ochu.

“You’re so _hard_ on me!” whined a male voice.

“I swear to Yevon, I really don’t know why I put up with this!” cried the woman.

I picked a gold-colored leaf off a tree and held it up to Rikku’s hair. She swatted me away.

“Be serious!” she hissed, peering through the bushes. “I think that chest behind the fiend has a sphere.”

“I have had it!” yelled the woman. “This is really it, sweetheart! After this job, we are _finished_! I wouldn’t sphere hunt with you again if you were the last sentient being alive!”

I unsheathed my sword languidly. Rikku glared at me as I stretched.

“I’m old,” I said, defensively.

“You are _not_ old, old man,” she snapped. I grinned at her, but she’d already swiveled to look back at the man and woman getting creamed by the giant ochu. “Okay. Let’s _do_ this!” She leaped out of the bushes and I rushed after her.

“You big meanie!” Rikku chirped to get the monster’s attention, where it held the male sphere hunter dangling from a tentacle. I drew my sword up and around to cleave the fiend while Rikku jointly attacked. Our foe screamed and dropped its hapless sweat-rank victim.

“How do you like that, _pycdynt_?” Rikku cried as she unleashed a thunder spell on the fiend. She caught my eye. I sheathed my sword and dropped to my knees, even as she started running at me. Her boot planted in my cupped gloves. I hurled her over my shoulder with well-rehearsed aim and heard the monster behind me screech. The screech became a wail of pyreflies. I approached the prone man, who looked up at me with dazed eyes. As Rikku sailed past me I reflexively reached up to catch her high-five.

I knelt. The man gaped at me. I took his hand and pulled him to his feet.

“I… Sir Auron… I… I…” he stammered. “I’m Janset! Oh, it…it’s such an honor to meet the Legendary Guardian! One of the defeaters of Sin and bringers of the Eternal Calm! Mara and I become sphere hunters to follow in your footsteps!”

“Thank you,” Mara interrupted, looking daggers at Janset, and turned to Rikku. “And you are…?”

“…I’m Rikku!” said Rikku, apparently unmoved by their lack of recognition of her.

“You saved us,” said Janset. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I do,” I said. “Stay out of our way.” I walked over to the treasure chest the fiend had been blocking and kicked it open.

“W… hey! _Hey_!” Mara stamped a green-booted foot. “That’s our sphere! We’ve been hunting that down for months!”

“Then get stronger and fight your own battles,” I said, flipping the blue sphere over the head of Janset, who ducked. Rikku leaped in the air and caught it.

“You asshole!” said Mara. “Is this any way for the guardian of two High Summoners to behave?”

“Yup,” I said, striding with Rikku off into the Kilika woods. An argument exploded behind us.

* * *

“I’m a bad influence on you, you know that?” said Rikku, flipping the sphere up in the air and trying clumsily to catch it behind her back. Had she not been at my sake while I was in the shower in the brand-new Kilika travel agency, she might have caught it. I could smell the rice wine even from the door.

“The worst,” I agreed, rubbing my wet head with a pink geometrically-patterned towel and dropping onto the other bed with a whump.

She balanced the sphere on her bony knees and braced on her hands behind her on a hideous patchwork duvet. Rin had great business acumen but I really questioned his decorating choices.

“Did you watch it?” I said.

“Mm. Boring.” She tossed it inexpertly to me and I dove to catch it before it smashed on the floor.

I gave her a look.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m not that drunk.”

“Yes, you are,” I said, setting the sphere aside. “You’re upset because they don’t know who you are.”

“Why should I care?” She stretched out on her bed with a snort. I watched her doubtfully. “Come to think of it, why should you? You were pretty harsh on them.”

I shrugged. “We don’t need more competition.” In truth I hated the label ‘Legendary Guardian,’ and hated being painted as a trendsetter. I had been hunting spheres for ten years to find out the why behind Sin. Having it turn into a worldwide craze seemingly to acquire status instead of knowledge got under my skin.

“You just can’t stand the limelight, can you? Everyone wanting to be like the great Sir Auron.” She waved her hands blindly in the air above her, eyes shut.

I grunted. She knew me well. “I knew you were jealous,” I teased.

“ _Jealous_?!” She whirled in bed, hurling a pillow at me. I laughed as it sailed over my head.

“Nice aim.”

“ _Pycdynt_ ,” she swore in Al Bhed.

“ _Pedlr_ ,” I returned in kind.

She growled and turned away from me, clutching her remaining pillow.

I stretched out myself, setting the sphere aside. I thrilled to the chase and the journey much more than the knowledge these days. I wasn’t looking for answers. To be honest, I was looking for fun. Ten years on a single-minded quest to find out how to defeat Sin entirely had robbed me of a lot of my life, and now with Rikku’s youthful spirit around I found it easy to, well, take it easy.

_Spirit of the times_ , I thought. Political upheaval blossomed everywhere—but rather than violent rebellion, change was coming from young, vibrant men and women seeking to redefine what was possible without the ever-looming threat of destruction and death. Passion galvanized what desperation had beaten down.

Instead of traveling around Spira watching someone I loved going to their death, I was on the adventure of a lifetime—to live. To be alive, without the constant shadow of death. It wasn’t about fame, money, or even knowledge. It was about every moment.

I inhaled deeply and exhaled with gusto.

“Shut up,” Rikku slurred into her pillow.

“Why don’t you ever say something?” I said. “You were one of Lady Yuna’s guardians too.”

“Hmph,” she grunted.

“You deserve no less recognition than I do,” I said. “You also guarded both of the last two High Summoners…”

“ _Auron_!” She sat up in a flash, eyes burning green at me. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?! _Vilghek ramm_!” She bounced out of bed, stumbling as she gained her feet.

“Rikku, wait.” She didn’t hesitate to slam the door on my words. I leaned back with a fresh sigh to listen to the ocean slapping against the wood supporting the bulk of Kilika town’s boardwalk.

_She just needs time_ , I chided myself. _You’ve had ten years to come to grips with Braska’s and Jecht’s deaths, and quite a bit more sake at that. For her, it’s only been a little over a year. Eventually, she’ll want to talk about it. She could talk the hind leg off a shoopuf when she gets started._ I snorted aloud.

_Then she can finally tell me if I’m right…_


	5. A Wedding

“Thought you weren’t coming, ya?” Wakka said as I entered the Crusaders’ tent. “Wha… you’re not dressed?!”

“Calm down,” I said, tossing my sword on a bed. “There’s time.”

“Hey, you cut it really fine!” he said, tugging at his collar as he looked in the mirror. “This is sort of a big deal, ya know?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I turned my back, hoping the antsy groom wouldn’t notice how wrinkled my black silk suit with a gold-edged collar had become from being stuffed in my bag for weeks. I heard him fidgeting behind me as I changed. The black-embroidered gold sash, at least, didn’t look too bad. I stepped up behind him to eye the mirror critically.

“Do I look all right?” said Wakka, squeezed into a ridiculous formal Crusaders uniform, probably the only respectable clothing he owned. He didn’t wait for an answer but slumped, downcast. “Ehh… I look like a tool. Why’s she marryin’ me, huh?”

I clapped him on the back. “She’s marrying you, that’s what’s important.”

He sighed. “Ya… I really hope so.” He gave me a strange look. “Rikku with you?”

“Where else?” I said.

He shook his head. “You two are quite a pair. Ya know… I hear all about Legendary Guardian Auron… don’t hear hardly anything about Rikku. Started to wonder if maybe you two had parted ways.”

“Never happen,” I assured him.

In retrospect, I think I was trying to assure myself.

* * *

My eyebrows arched almost to my hairline at the sight of my young friend with her desperately frizzy hair shedding pins, wearing a crumpled strapless peach dress. Wakka nervously jabbed Rikku with a finger so she would take my proffered arm and we could walk down the aisle.

“You look ridiculous,” I murmured.

“So do you, old man,” she retorted so only I could hear.

“I’ve never even seen you in a skirt. If you didn’t have that suspicious gleam in those Al Bhed green eyes of yours I wouldn’t know it was you inside that hideous dress,” I whispered.

“You look like you’re wearing pajamas,” she said.

“ _Bihg_ ,” I said.

“ _Banjand_ ,” she said.

I’m glad she didn’t meet my eye as we reached the steps up to the inner temple of Besaid and stepped to our respective sides. I could tell she would have started laughing and her laugh is infectious. I watched Kimahri escort Yuna up the aisle.

They were a much more pleasant if mismatched pair; both looked suited to formal wear. Kimahri’s tribal garments as an elder of the Ronso weren’t as ridiculous as Wakka’s tight uniform nor my own presentation monk suit. Kimahri’s garb covered him better than his loincloth but didn’t besmirch his dignity, crossing his chest with beautifully metal-studded red straps and encircling only his thighs in black buttoned leather. His wristguards were black and brass.

Yuna floated serenely on his arm in her lavender blue and white dress. She stopped in front of Rikku and we all turned to watch the groom.

Wakka walked up the aisle like it was a stretch of beach. I saw Rikku trembling and looking away, clearly overcome by the comical sight of him trying to look dignified despite his teased-up hair. I grinned as she looked desperately up at the dark, distant vaulted ceiling, biting her lip.

The music quieted and a hush rose from the spectators. I looked down toward the temple’s open doors and the blinding sunlight beyond.

Lulu’s full black skirt trailed into fine lace behind her. Shining silver cuffs adorned her neck and wrists. Her step and smile were of a measured patience. She’d known this day was coming for some time, possibly even before the proposal, and was in no hurry to rush through it. The Eternal Calm that now graced Spira shone nowhere more clearly than in her impassive brown eyes.

I met Rikku’s eyes as we both turned to see Wakka’s reaction. He looked shell-shocked, or on the verge of a whoop of triumph. Rikku and I shared a grin.

Lulu stepped to Wakka’s side before the elderly Yevon priest. They waited while the priest’s brow furrowed and he paged through a large book on the stand in front of him. Wakka shifted with obvious impatience when one touch from Lulu’s hand stilled him.

I saw Rikku shake her head with a grin. I arched an eyebrow at her.

Somehow, despite itchy formalwear and the oppressive heat of the dim temple, the priest’s nearsightedness and Wakka’s stammering, the chaos was beautiful. From it a relieved husband and wife emerged into Besaid sunshine amidst fantastic cheers.

I stepped up beside Rikku, watching while people threw garlands of flowers over the new bride and groom. Her pensive eyes lifted to me. I offered my arm again to take her down into the crowd of well-wishers.

“I remember when it was just you hanging around the fringes of large groups,” she said. “You and your stuffiness.”

“I remember when you wanted to be the center of attention,” I said.

“It’s their day,” said Rikku, nodding to the couple at the center of the knot of humanity.

I shrugged. “Time to party, though.”

She gave me an incredulous look, and then tugged on one of the gold-knot buttons of my suit. “ _Pajama_ party.”

I laughed.

* * *

Auspicious days in Besaid were always followed by a lovely bonfire night in the village square. A drunken Wakka had been towed off by Lulu some time ago, when that patience had run out and her eyes gleamed with more than firelight. I found Rikku sipping from my sake jug when I returned from catching up with Yuna.

“Careful, you still have yet to beat that fiend,” I said.

“I will, one of these days,” said Rikku.

I pulled it from her fingers. “Not if you drink it like that.”

She scowled. “What’s wrong with the way I drink?”

“You drink like you want it.” I took a sip, milky fire sliding down my throat.

“How is that different from the way you drink?”

I snorted and corked the jug.

“Anyway, you’re the one who always carries alcohol around.” She folded her arms around her knees at glared at the fire. She’d long since changed back into her normal clothes, but I found my ‘pajamas’ more comfortable than changing back into my robes. _One of these days, I need to get new clothes. How long has it been since I left behind Yevon’s order?_

Aloud, I said, “If you carried a container for alcohol around it would always be empty.”

“Right, and I know that, so I don’t. You big meanie.”

“You’re right.” I sighed. “This is a party, after all. A time for celebration.” I glanced at the darkened house that was no longer just Lulu’s. “Do you think they will be happy?”

“Yes. He doesn’t seem to mind her being in charge, and that’s just how she likes it. Why do you ask?”

“I wonder.”

“You wonder what?”

“I wonder… whether their match, made in desperate times, reflects that desperation. Desperation doesn’t last.”

“Hmph. Did for us.”

I turned, ever so slowly, eyebrow raised. She flushed.

“I mean, we became friends on a pilgrimage. Two pilgrimages, if you want to get technical.” She hiccupped, shifting her eyes from mine, in apparent embarrassment over her words. “We’re still friends.”

“One might say Besaid is relatively sheltered from the aftermath of the storm,” I said. “We still move in desperate times, you and I. We almost… seek them out.”

She scoffed. “People are leaving the island who never thought of it before, all inspired by Lady Yuna to want to see the new world they’re in. Even if it is a right mess. …Auron, we’re talking about sad things again. Can’t we just enjoy our friends’ wedding feast? Are we so scarred by the world?” She reached for my jug again and I put my hand over hers.

“I wonder,” I said. Part of me wanted to say something about the sake, but I thought again of how much I’d drunk in the years after the death of Jecht and Braska.

She pulled her hand back and hiccupped again. I stood up.

“I’m going to get out of these ridiculous pajamas,” I said.

“Your monk robes are just differently ridiculous,” she muttered.

I froze. Facing away from her, she couldn’t see my mischievous smile.

“I mean, it’s been how long since you left your order?” she added. “And you’re still wearing them? Do you know how silly that looks?”

“Oh, you did _not_ just say that.”

I whirled and dove on her, picked her up, and carried her shrieking and kicking body down to the beach, where I threw her in. She came up spluttering and enraged. She chased me laughing up the dunes. By the time we walked back to the village, we were absolutely soaking and covered in sand. More importantly, she had a big silly grin plastered on her face.


	6. Friction

A near-dawn periwinkle sky covered the peaceful little island. A slight chill in the morning breeze whipped the ends of my red monk’s jacket and hinted at the fall. Summer had gone too quickly, but I liked the smell of the wind as it cooled.

“You’re leaving again, aren’t you.”

I turned away from the ocean, arms folded to keep his jacket closed, and faced the sad, accusing eyes of Braska’s daughter.

“Spira’s troubles are not over just because Sin is gone,” I said. “Spheres aid our understanding of how deep Yevon’s corruption was and how it might be undone.”

“No, they don’t. Spheres just make more people angry. The more truth you find the more people get angry or defensive about Yevon. Spira’s more divided now than it ever was when Sin was a constant threat,” said Yuna. “Why are you really doing this, Auron?”

“Hiding from the truth just delays the inevitable. We can’t live the sheltered lives we once did,” I said, curiously unwilling to talk about my less-noble motivations of ‘having fun.’ For some reason, with her, I felt I still needed to personify a guardian. “Things may look bad from the outside, but we are doing some good, Rikku and I. Most of the temples’ histories haven’t been searched through in memory. We find things that surprise even the keepers of the spheres.”

She sighed and rubbed her cheek with the back of one hand. The cold was biting color into her features. “I wish things were better. I wish they weren’t like this. All those deaths to bring an end to Sin… they should have meant more than this.”

I moved to shelter her from the wind and put an arm around her. She leaned into my hug. “No one’s dying. People are angry and arguing, but no one is dying like they used to. People have been betrayed by their beliefs. They’ll be angry for a while, but there are good people out there looking to restore sense and order.”

She snorted and looked up at me. “Right, you and Rikku are setting such a good example for everyone by arguing every five minutes. How can you stand traveling together after all this time? Don’t you drive each other nuts?”

I grinned. “To be honest… it’s more fun than I’ve had in memory. My life is not so constrained anymore.”

“I think her habits are rubbing off on you. You used to be so implacable, when we first met. My father always spoke of you as a sane and sober man.”

“Your father… he liked to think the best of everyone.”

“What did he think of Rikku?”

I relaxed my grip around her, nearly letting her go. I hoped my silence would warn her to drop the subject. It wasn’t something any of us talked about. Rikku had demurred in those early days after she got back, and then after Sin she took to walking out on any questions from any of us. And, just lately, flying into a rage if the subject came up.

“Neither of you will talk to me about what happened,” she said, sounding hurt. “Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean he never existed.”

“Your father was a good man, Yuna. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for him. If we had known then what we know now… things might have been different,” I said carefully.

“And I guess the past can’t be changed, or he’d still be alive. Rikku wouldn’t have just let him die.”

I glared down at her. “Don’t say that, Lady Yuna. Don’t you ever say that where she can hear you.”

She looked taken aback. “I… I won’t.”

“Good.” I unwrapped my coat from around her shoulders. “Get in out of the cold. I’ll have Rikku look in and say goodbye before we leave.”

Yuna was almost out of earshot when she paused. “Auron? …Take care of my cousin, okay?”

I nodded once and took a bracing sip of sake. The jug was almost empty again. Some things just refused to be filled.

* * *

“Whew!” Rikku said as soon as we were out of the village, heading for the ship moored at the docks. “This place is, like, Nowheresville. I don’t know how Yunie can stand to live here after she’s seen all of Spira.”

“She spent most of her life here. Her pilgrimage was the first time she really knew the vastness of her world,” I said.

“Well, her loss. So, we’re going back to Kilika Temple, right? I was actually starting to make some headway with that dusty old stack!” She leaped up and punched the air.

“Actually I heard some interesting things have been turning up in Bikanel,” I said. “How about digging in the desert?”

She stopped dead and I faced down her incredulous look. She folded her arms and eyed me up and down.

“Not in those duds you don’t,” she said. “I’d be hauling your dehydrated body back to the encampment every five minutes for heat stroke. Either you change your clothes or I’m combing the desert _by myself_.”

“Fine.” I shrugged. “Then you go to Bikanel. I’ll go to Kilika.”

“Bikanel was _your_ idea!” She threw her hands in the air. “ _Oui tysh pycdynt_!” She strode out the docks with a passionate silence and I followed. Kimahri Ronso was already aboard, as well as a couple of other out-of-town well-wishers. We were the last to board.

The _S.S. Poulo_ cast off and set sail for Bevelle, where we could get other transportation. Getting anywhere in Spira was an arduous process. Sometimes Rikku joked about going off on her own—at least I thought they were jokes.

I stood in the prow, watching the horizon unfold to a blank blue flatness. Rikku came up and gripped the rail beside me.

“All right, old man,” she said through gritted teeth. “But after the first time you pass out from the heat I’m not dragging you back to camp. You can vaporize for all I care.”

I laughed softly. “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

I took a deep steadying breath outside the tent, trying to control my temper before I went in. Rikku lay prone on a pallet, a damp cloth on her forehead, propped up on pillows so she could sip from a canteen. I saw my sake jug sitting in arm’s reach too, and this made me angry all over again. I snatched it up, glaring at her.

“After that lecture about me not passing out in the heat, and you go and drink alcohol in the sun,” I growled. “What’s going on, Rikku? I didn’t think it was this bad, that you’d be this stupid.”

“ _Crid ib_!” she snapped, and winced, curling up on her side, away from me. “I feel like _ramm_ already, I don’t need this.”

I sighed and sat down beside her. She curled tighter as I reached for her. I let my hand drop to my thigh.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Bitch at me. Yell at me. Give me a really good Al Bhed tirade. But don’t drown your words with my sake. _Ramm_ , Rikku, I used to drink like this too, ten years ago. …Do you know what it felt like, losing all three of you at once?”

I regretted it the instant the words were out of my mouth, then got angry all over again that I couldn’t talk about this with her. She rolled over, gave me a murderous look, and scrambled to get up. I grabbed her arm.

“Look, I’m sorry…” I started.

She threw me off. “ _Vilg oui_.” She staggered out of the tent.

I stared down at the sake jug, scowled, and poured its contents out on the floor. Then I surprised myself by smashing it violently on the end of the bed. I stared at what I’d done, eyebrows high, and shook my head at myself.

I got up and left the tent, not really expecting to find Rikku. She’d need to cool off, and I hoped she would do so literally as well as figuratively, and not with more alcohol. I wondered if the camp was dry, but suspected it was too much to hope for. The hardy Al Bhed and non-Al Bhed members of the newly formed Machine Faction digging in the desert liked to live rough.

“Hey, Auron!”

I turned. Rikku’s mohawked brother came bounding across the dunes to me. I felt incredulous at his energy in this heat. His tattooed skin was slick with sweat, beading around his goggles.

“Good to see you again,” I said as he clapped me on the back.

“Just the man I wanted to see!” His thick Al Bhed accent was smoother than I remembered, probably from more intermingling with non-Al Bhed. “Sphere hunting!”

Inwardly I groaned. _Not another joiner…_ “Yes?”

He lowered his voice to an excited whisper. “My friend and I, we have been developing machines to detect spheres! We would very much like to show you!”

“Really?” I let him drag me off across the dunes. Even a short walk in the desert sun felt like miles. He took me through unmarked sand, seemingly without needing any kind of signposts or compass. I held up my sleeve to shield my eyes from stinging sand-filled wind and pitiless glare.

Brother shoved aside the flap in a small, isolated tent. “We have a celebrity in our midst!” he announced to my chagrin.

A dark-skinned Al Bhed looked up from a machine he was tinkering with and waved, a screwdriver in his fingers and elaborate headgear with magnifying lenses perched on his head. “Hi. I’m Buddy.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said, sitting on a crate Brother dragged over. “Is this it?” I said, pointing to what Buddy held.

Brother shook his head. “This is other equipment. We need a great deal to strike out on our own and leave Bikanel.”

“But with our machines we could introduce a whole new era of sphere hunting—more efficient, safer, easier,” said Buddy. “We’re hoping not just to test, develop and implement sphere-detecting technology, we’re hoping to get it so precise it can be used from aboard an airship.”

“Airship?” I said. “You have an airship?”

Buddy exchanged a glance with Brother. “Well… not yet. That’s where we could use your help, Sir Auron.”

“We think we have found records of one far to the north,” said Brother. “We are looking to go recover it, but we need funds.”

“With an airship and a sphere detector, you would have everything you need to find spheres faster and more precisely than anyone on Spira, by a huge margin,” said Buddy.

“We are not making this offer to anyone but the best,” said Brother. “You are like family.”

I snorted. “You’re not likely to find anyone else with the kind of cash you need, either.”

“There is that,” said Brother, and Buddy elbowed him. “Ow!”

“What we’re proposing is a partnership,” said Buddy. “Not just an investment. We could help each other out enormously. The potential of all this would mean you never worrying again about changing from ship to ship and taking weeks to get to the right port, crossing huge distances on foot, and chasing rumors of spheres that don’t turn out to be there. You could find spheres no one has even heard of, long-lost spheres, in a fraction of the time it’s taking you now. With all the sphere hunters out there, it’s getting harder and harder to find them. This would give you the edge you need to potentially uncover secrets beyond your wildest imaginings.”

_That’s the second time he’s talked about ‘potential’ in the last two minutes._ “Gentlemen, you have intrigued me. I’ll need to discuss it with my partner.”

Brother looked worriedly at Buddy. “She… ah… did not seem so excited about it when I asked her.”

“Let me talk to her,” I said, standing up.

“Well, listen, even if she isn’t interested, if you two end up parting ways, and you find you’re thinking of us, don’t hesitate to contact us,” said Buddy, rising and offering his hand.

I shook it, then Brother’s hand. Shortly after I left the tent I heard arguing behind me. I regretted almost immediately not getting Brother to lead me back. After walking for much longer than I thought it should have taken me to return to camp I concluded I was lost and sat down for a rest, cursing myself for not bringing water.

_She’ll never go for it_ , I thought. _She only barely tolerates traveling with me. But if they succeed in getting this sphere hunting machine working, maybe she’ll change her mind. I think she’d be more than happy to invest in faster travel, if that airship turns out to be more than a rumor._

_…I would be happy to never have to walk across this vilgehk desert again. And an airship would mean we would never have to put up with what happened on Gagazet again._

By nightfall I had found my way back, slowly, and seeing spots. I managed to stay upright until I got to our tent. Which was empty, and the shards of the sake jug still lay where they’d fallen. My head felt like it was full of a thousand roaring fiends, so I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything but water and sleep.


	7. Apology

It hurt to peel my eyes open. I fumbled blindly for the canteen I’d left by the bed and heard it clatter to the floor.

“ _Cred_ ,” I hissed.

I heard a soft chuckle, not unkind, as it was pressed into my hand.

“When did you start swearing in Al Bhed?” Rikku murmured as I unscrewed the cap and drank deep.

I kept swallowing, in a lengthening silence. Finally I rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand. “Thanks. …I don’t know, years ago. I spent a lot of time around the Al Bhed about ten years ago.”

“Why?” she said.

I sighed through my nose and squinted at her in the dim light of the tent. “Looking for you, of course.”

She shifted, looking uncomfortable, but did not leave. She pushed a tray at me. I frowned as it swam into focus. I saw shaved fruit ices, eggs, fried strips of some kind of meat mixed with mushrooms, and some round green fruit in halves with bright pink and orange pulp.

“I’m… sorry about yesterday,” she said. “You’re right. I’ve been drinking too much. I’m going to stop.”

I shook my head. “Rikku… you don’t have to stop, I just want you to take care of yourself. I want us to talk. I know that… there are things you don’t want to talk about, and maybe someday you will—I’d like to hear what you have to say. But we don’t have to talk about those things, not ever, if you don’t want. I just wish you’d tell me whatever it is that makes it seem like drinking in the morning feels better.”

She still didn’t meet my eyes. I offered a spoon to her. She hesitated, then took the spoon and one of the halves of fruit.

“Your brother thinks he may know where an airship is,” I said.

She snorted. “My brother gets a little too excited about the possibility of airships and tends to go off half-cocked.”

“He did find the last one,” I pointed out.

“No, I did, and that was after _years_ of all of us looking,” she said. “He still took the credit.” She spooned up a mouthful of fruit and rolled her eyes at me.

“It would be nice to not have to walk everywhere. Remember Gagazet?”

“ _Ur, tysh_!” She flung the back of her hand on her forehead and dropped dramatically back to the floor, her fruit remaining remarkably undisturbed in her folded legs. “I had to drag you down that whole mountain, sick with that blasted fever, and you weigh a _tysh_ ton, Auron!” She lifted her head to glare accusingly at me.

I shrugged, eating the eggs. “Just the kind of thing an airship would solve.”

She sat up. “Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath. It took almost a decade of all the Al Bhed searching to find that one, and these days everyone’s more interested in looking for spheres.”

“He’s got some ideas about that too…”

She groaned. “He cornered you with the sales pitch, didn’t he? I told him we weren’t interested.”

“If it turns out to be true…”

“If they can prove it works, if they show me an airship, I will jump all over it, and all over everything else, and run around like a madwoman. I will have a field day. I will shower them with gold. But until that day, don’t let them sucker you in.” She shook her spoon at me.

I laughed. “Yes ma’am.”

Her smile faded as she looked at me.

“What?” I said.

She dropped her eyes. “Nothing.”

I nudged her with my foot.

“It’s nothing, Auron. I’m just sorry about yesterday. That’s all.”

We finished breakfast in companionable silence, although my mind was on the last time I remembered her apologizing—on Braska’s pilgrimage, ten years ago. It was unusual. She really did seem sorry. I set aside the tray with a sigh and reached for her.

“Hey! What…?” she said, squirming.

I squeezed her tight and gave her spiky ponytailed hair a noogie. She shrieked and whapped me in the side of the head with a pillow. Laughing, I scrambled for another. She had abandoned that line of attack, though, and was tickling me. She laughed evilly.

“You scream like a _girl_ when I tickle you!” she crowed.

I grabbed her and turned the tables, giving her a really thorough tickling in spite of her shrieks. It hurt my head. I decided I didn’t care.

* * *

By unspoken agreement we’d both had enough of the desert and prepared to leave camp.

“Ah, Rikku,” a smooth voice stopped us.

Rikku turned, uttered a cry and ran at the yellow-haired man with the eyepatch and studded leather outfit behind us. “Gippal!” She punched him on the arm and he swept her up in a hug.

She shoved at him. “Enough, creep!” She stuck out her tongue. “Haven’t you gotten the message it’s over yet?”

“I’ll always have a soft spot for you in my heart,” he said, clutching his chest theatrically.

“Yeah, where I punched you,” she said, brandishing her fist again.

He laughed. “Been a long time!”

She nodded. “How’ve you been? Someone told me you’re in charge of this ‘Machine Faction’ project. Last I remember you couldn’t lead an ant to sugar.”

“Yep, that’s me.” He shoved his hands in his belt and nodded to me. “And I see you’ve got a babysitter, finally.”

She screamed with outrage.

“Sir Auron, I presume?” said Gippal, proffering his hand.

Rikku slapped it away before I could shake it and stuck her tongue out at Gippal again. “He’s a low-down thief, Auron. Don’t trust him one inch.”

“She’s right, and she should know. Taught me everything,” said Gippal, winking at Auron.

“And you still turned out a mess. Oh, Gippal, I found your eye while I was out sphere hunting. It was delicious.”

Gippal rolled his good eye. “I don’t envy you,” he said to me.

“Oh, come on,” said Rikku, dragging at my sleeve. “This neighborhood’s gone completely to _cred_ , suddenly.”

“I hate to see you go, but I looooove to watch you leave!” Gippal called after her, followed up with a wolf whistle.

I glanced down at Rikku, and she firmly ignored me until we got to the dune vehicles with their huge propellers and massive skis.

“Old friend,” she said. “Real creep, but a good egg. He’ll do well with the Machine Faction if he can keep his head out of his _ycc_ long enough.”

I grinned. “It’s good to see you happy again.”

Her smile vanished again and she looked away into the desert. I frowned, but as I opened my mouth the Al Bhed on the nearest vehicle bawled at us to board if we were going to board, already.

“Where are we headed?” I said as we settled into our seats, as the driver started up the fans.

Before they reached a deafening roar, Rikku shouted, “Baaj Temple!”

* * *

I thought I’d misheard her, but no, we were headed to the temple where Jyscal Guado had exiled his wife and child many years ago. Once abandoned, the temple now housed some rather pale and sunken-eyed skinny Yevon sphere preservationists. It took quite a while to get there, and I wanted to stop at temples on the way, but Rikku insisted we keep going.

“What’s there?” I said.

“I heard they’ve found some really unusual old archives,” she said vaguely.

I leaned into the spray up the sides of the ship, letting flecks of water caress my skin. Sun, wind, and water. When I turned to question her further, she’d gone. I shrugged and basked some more, enjoying the journey.

“Sir… Auron?” someone said behind me, snapping me out of my reverie. I sighed, and turned to yet another gushing sphere-hunting admirer.

_Rikku’s got the right idea_ , I decided, signing a sphere hunter’s backpack. _I’d trade all this for her anonymity in a heartbeat._

* * *

“Relax, we’ll get there,” I said to Rikku, pacing up and down at Kilika’s dockside bar, squinting out to sea. I shook my ridiculous fruit-laden cocktail at her. “Have a drink.”

“No thanks,” she said distractedly. “That boat should be here by now. I can’t believe there’s only _one_ captain who does runs out to Baaj for hire.”

“No one goes out there, honey, but the most crazy of sphere-hunters,” said the bartender, ‘cleaning’ a glass with a dirty rag. I sipped my drink, uncaring, figuring the eye-peeling rum was enough to kill any germs. “They say it’s haunted by that Guado woman and her son.”

“More like haunted by Yevon freaks,” said a grizzled man further down the bar with a shudder. “They say none of those sphere geeks ever go out in daylight, they just stare at sphere displays all day.”

I twirled a tiny pink patterned paper umbrella in my fingers, marveling. “Look at this,” I said to the bartender, since Rikku had decided to go stand on the edge of the dock and shade her eyes as if she could drag the boat there with her gaze. “Can you believe it? Two years ago no one would have even dreamed of doing something like this. What would be the point of putting so much effort into making something so pointless, when every day Sin could come around and wipe out everything? And look!” I tugged on the center and closed the umbrella. “Would you credit it? This, this right here, is the real sign of the Eternal Calm. We have the luxury of doing things like this just for the sake of doing them. We all have so many more years, so much extra time we don’t spend rebuilding everything just to survive. People aren’t dying in droves, and we can innovate the tiniest little miracles.”

I lifted my eyes and saw the bartender frowning at me with wide eyes. “All right, I’m cutting you off,” she said, and walked away.

I sighed and put the umbrella down, and swiveled to squint at my distracted companion, possibly the only person in all of Spira who might actually understand what I was trying to convey.

“Miracles!” I shouted to her.

She ignored me. I grinned, finished my drink, and went to lie in the sun. Blissfully unaware of what awaited us in Baaj Temple.


	8. Baaj

“We normally don’t allow sphere hunters,” said Niven, the temple curator, as he led us through chilly poorly-lit halls. “But since it’s you, Sir Auron, we are glad to extend to you every courtesy.”

I nodded. “We appreciate it.” This was the up side of being the Legendary Guardian—nowhere refused us entry. Not New Yevon, not the Youth League, and—although this was probably more because of Rikku—not the Al Bhed or Machine Faction. We could access spheres where no one else stood a chance of gaining entry.

“We’re… ah… working on restoring some of the temple architecture, although our priority is the preservation of the spheres, so I advise you to move around with great care and watch your step,” Niven said, his hands flapping as he picked his way over some semi-collapsed stairs. “There’s a lot of, ah, water, as well, so surfaces can be slick. The water damage has been terrible for the spheres, just terrible. If we had gotten here sooner, to think of the spheres we might have saved…” He sighed shakily. “Tragic. Awful. Dreadful.”

“What was on them?” said Rikku, startling me. She’d been silent ever since we left the dock.

“Who knows?” Niven flapped his hands even harder.

I saw Rikku’s jaw tighten.

The stacks were a mess. Even the forbidden vaults in Bevelle weren’t anywhere near in a state like this, and they’d been shut up for centuries. Walls had partially collapsed, inefficient pipes and sluices didn’t quite control the runaway leaks, and bat guano covered piles of spheres. A squeak from overhead made me duck and cover.

“Here.” Niven passed us some bizarre-looking broad conical hats encrusted with more guano.

“Why not just evict or kill the bats?” I said.

“They outnumber us ten to one,” said Niven.

I sighed and looked at Rikku, expecting something sarcastic from her. She was tying on her hat with a determined look, so I did the same. A few of the Yevonites glanced up at us where they hunched over piles of spheres, eyes glittering eerily under shadows the hats cast. Their pale hands trembled. They looked lizardlike in sickly grey light bulbs.

“The rooms have no heat,” said Niven. “Sorry, limited power sources until we get some… engineers from Bevelle out here to fix the water turbines under the temple. We’re low down on the maintenance and repairs list. If you need anything, ah… don’t hesitate to ask.” Hands flapping like the bats we heard overhead, he skittered out of the room.

“All things considered, I’d rather be back on the beach,” I murmured to Rikku, coming close beside her as she started checking spheres on stacks.

“So go,” she said tightly. “I’m not stopping you. You can probably catch the boat before it leaves.”

I frowned, but said nothing. She sniffed. I moved away to check some different stacks, giving her space. More than once I glanced over at her and found her completely absorbed. I sidled over.

“If you’d tell me what you’re looking for, I could help,” I said.

“Something useful,” she said.

“Such as?” I said.

She sighed. “Auron, you really…” She stopped, and glanced around. Her sharp tone had caused a drop in the murmured conversations among the sphere preservers. She glanced back at me.

“I… appreciate you wanting to help,” she murmured. “But… just… let me get on with it, you know? I really want to focus.”

I nodded and left her to it.

I knew she was hiding something from me. I’d seen enough deception and self-deception, and I knew her well. I felt a vast chasm between us regarding her time travel, and the pilgrimage with Braska and Jecht. It seemed to loom larger and more present, the more time passed. I worried I was losing my friend—not all at once in battle, but like sand through an hourglass, a little at a time.

_I’ve been enjoying sphere hunting, but it seems like she could use a break. Maybe after this little exercise in misery tolerance I can persuade her to a vacation._

_Perhaps Yuna could help me. She did say she wants to see more of her cousin, and Rikku’s quite fond of her. If I could drag them both to Luca I know they’d have a good time. I’d relish the opportunity to catch up with my friend Golon, I know he left Bevelle for Luca when Kelk Ronso left the order. And I hear O’aka’s settled there as well._

I smiled in spite of the cold, the wet, the guano, and the uncomfortable hat, thinking of blitzball and Sphere Break and old friends and new ones.

* * *

“Hey.” I nudged Rikku. “It’s freezing. Everyone else has gone to bed. Come on.”

“In a minute,” she murmured.

“That’s what you said two hours ago. You missed dinner,” I said.

“Not hungry,” she said.

“Don’t make me drag you out of here.”

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “If it will get you to stop bugging me, fine, I’ll get some dinner.”

“The kitchen’s closed.”

She stared bleary-eyed up at me. Guano pattered on her hat, fortunately at the right angle to not slide into her face.

“I saved you something, it’s back at the room. Now come on.” I pulled her up by the arm. She let me lead her silently, which was more distressing than if she’d fought me off and glared at me.

“Tired?” I said.

She sighed. “Yeah.”

“It will all be there tomorrow,” I said. “They’re not going to deteriorate to unreadability overnight—and even if they were, there’s no way for you to go through them all alone.”

She grunted.

We left the hats on hooks and headed back to our damp, chilly room with ratty blankets.

“I will never knock Rin’s again,” I said, shutting the door. “I would give anything for a real bed, loud covers or no.”

Rikku crawled into her bunk, ignoring the tray on the bedside table—or rather, lopsided hunk of rock.

“Rikku…?”

“I’m tired.” She turned her back on me and curled up under the blankets. “I’m sorry, I’m not up for conversation. How about in the morning?”

“Of course. Good night.” I flicked off the light and got into bed, robes and all. I dreaded the thought of all this cold inviting another fever like the one I had suffered half a year ago.

_I hope you find what you’re looking for quickly_ , I thought. _I’m not staying here for long. There’s too much comfort and excitement out in the world to want to languish here in the bat-infested cold._

* * *

In the morning when I woke she’d already gone down to the stacks. She did stop for lunch, but rebuffed my attempts at conversation. Not accustomed to or comfortable with having to be the more gregarious of the two of us, I gave up and flipped through spheres.

I found temple records, dry recitations, interpretive religious texts, and personal diaries of clergy. All of no more use to anyone than the scraped-off guano. I took a long walk around the outside of the temple and asked Niven when the next supply boat was due.

“Two days,” he said.

I sighed. “What have you found in the stacks that’s been… of use?”

He blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

“What has been noteworthy among your finds?” I said.

“I… I don’t understand. We’re finding spheres.” He flapped his hands, seeming a bit agitated.

“Yes, you have. What’s been on them?” I said. “Has anyone from Yevon come to look at anything you’ve found?”

“No. …We send them reports.”

“I see.” I explored the rest of the temple, not eager to return to the eye-drying stacks of spheres. When I finally gave up, donned my hat and went back in, Rikku didn’t even look up.

* * *

“All right, that’s it.” I slammed my hand on the table, startling all the Yevonites. “ _Rikku_.”

She sighed, lifting her head. “What now?”

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Can’t it wait?” she said irritably.

“No,” I said, equally irritably.

She followed me out into the hall.

“It’s been two weeks,” I said. “We have never stayed anywhere this long looking for any sphere. Tell me what we’re looking for. Tell me what’s so important that you would sit here in the damp dark nastiness of that cave all day every day.”

She stared at me, silent.

“ _TYSH ed_ , Rikku! This is unfair. I have been patient, and I have waited, but I am sick of this. What won’t you tell me?”

“Auron…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think it’s time you left.”

I reeled. “…What?”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? You’re miserable here. Take off on your own for a while. I’ll catch you up later, okay? This is just something that I’ve gotta do.”

I sighed. “I’ll leave—when you tell me what it is you’re looking for. I’m worried about you. I don’t know what is going on, and I don’t like it. What has happened to you, Rikku?”

“It’s personal.”

“Personal? Personal. Rikku, you’re my closest friend.”

“And you’re mine. But there are some things that… I just don’t want to share with you right now. I promise, everything will be different later, but right now, I have to do this. It’s for the best. I know you’ve been patient, and I’m sorry I haven’t been… talkative.”

I laughed sharply, hollowly. “That’s an understatement.”

She took off her hat and rubbed at her lank, greasy, unkempt hair.

“Have I done something wrong, Rikku?” I said, wishing she would say yes, wishing she would get angry, wishing she would beat the crap out of me.

She shook her head. “Auron… you’ve been the best.” She reached up to my face, her eyes so sad. “I know you understand… how hard it is. You talked some about how hard it was for you. I couldn’t bear to listen, and I’m sorry.”

“Rikku.” I wrapped her chilly fingers in my gloved hands. “It doesn’t have to be that way. When I went through the worst of my grief, I didn’t have anyone to talk to who could even begin to understand. But this is different. You have me.”

She looked helplessly at me. “I… can’t.”

“What about Yuna? If Yuna came here…”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to talk about it. I really, really don’t. I just want to be by myself for a while. Being around you reminds me of what was lost.”

I sucked in air. “…Oh.” It felt like she’d ripped out part of me. I backed up a step. She watched me sadly. “Oh.”

She turned away. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I headed back to the room. On the way I discovered I still had the crappy hat on and tore it off, leaving it forlornly in a damp corridor.

The boat would be coming tomorrow, and I would leave on it. I lay on the nasty little bed that until an hour before I’d wanted nothing more than to leave behind. Now I felt afraid, deeply afraid, that if I left, I would be losing Rikku for good.

I didn’t know what else to say, to do. I reminded her of Jecht and Braska. When she looked at me, it made her pain worse. I was hurting her just by being there.

I sighed and rolled onto my side. _I have to get my head straight. I’ll head for Besaid. I need to see the sun, and smiling faces. I need to feel welcome and wanted again._

My chest felt like a warehouse of weight.

* * *

The last twenty-four hours on Baaj was sheer hell. We didn’t talk that night, or the next morning—silence like spears thrust through me. I packed up. To my surprise Rikku surfaced from the stacks, leaving her quixotic search for an unprecedented non-food-or-sleep reason.

She hesitated in the doorway, then crossed the room and threw her arms around me. I held her, felt her shaking with held-in sobs.

“Rikku,” I said, pained. “Come with me. Whatever it is, it’s not worth this. Come to Besaid with me. Come see Yuna and Lulu and Wakka. Come see your friends. We love you. I love you. I cannot stand to see you hurting like this.”

She pulled out of my arms. “And I can’t turn it off for you. I’m sorry.” She turned away.

“I… That’s not what I meant. I would rather see you in any state than never see you again.”

She froze with a gasp.

“Rikku, I _will_ see you again, right?”

“Of course,” she murmured, but she didn’t turn around. “It’s not like we won’t be friends anymore, Auron. This is just for a little while.” She turned at last and smiled, a little too brightly, her face still wet with tears. “Everything will be better soon. I promise.”

I sighed. “If you are not off this island in a week I’m coming back to check on you, and I am bringing reinforcements. I’m not going to leave you here to turn into another one of those creepy sphere preservationists.” 

“Oh, _so_ creepy!” she said with a theatrical shudder, and flashed me a grin, this one a little less forced. “Yuck. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into one of _them_.” She stuck her tongue out. “Can you imagine? I’d have the smell of bat crap permanently burned into my every pore!”

I forced a laugh. “No more room sharing, if that happens!” I shook a finger at her, but my heart wasn’t in it. _Come back to me_ , I wanted to say. Instead I picked up my bag. Everything, I felt, had been said. Nothing was left but awkwardness and aching silence. She walked with me to the dock, embraced me once more.

I was afraid to say good-bye, afraid it would cement a wall between us that would never come down. She didn’t say it either. I watched her until her face faded in the permanent mist overhanging that shithole of a temple.

“ _Vilg_ , I need a drink,” I growled.


	9. Besaid

“Are you in love with her?”

I almost fell off the barstool. “What kind of question is that?!”

Lulu watched me placidly. “A reasonable one.”

“I’m… I am nearly twice her age!” I said, aghast.

“She’s seventeen, and you’re… thirty?”

“Thirty- _one_!”

She shrugged. “And what has that to do with how you feel?”

“She is a _child_!”

“Do you really think of her that way?”

“What other way would there be? I am not a monster!”

“She’s a young woman. A very attractive one at that.”

“She’s seventeen!”

“She won’t always be. But she will always be Rikku. If she was older?”

“She’s not.”

“If she was?” 

“What are you driving at? Are you trying to make me out to be a pervert?” I was enraged now, and it didn’t help that I was on my sixth drink after a prolonged bout of sobriety. “Do you think the only reason I would want to be friends with her would be because I want to get in her pants? There is a hell of a lot more to her than what most people see when they look at her! She is sharp as a _vilgehk_ tack, braver than any ten other people I know…” I swayed, “not counting you and Yuna and Wakka and Kimahri, of course… what was I saying?”

“Brave,” she prompted.

“Funny!” I snapped. “For years after Jecht and Braska died and… and… well, I didn’t laugh, absolutely nothing was funny. I was not one to be amused by anything. And she makes me laugh. And she is completely one hundred percent wrong for my personality. We should not get along. And we do. That’s the funniest part. I don’t want to talk about this anymore! I came here to feel better and to be with people who actually want me around. People I don’t remind of dead people.” I found I’d knocked my glass over in my passionate denials. “ _Vilg_. Bartender?”

“He left.” Lulu put her hand on my arm. “Why not walk with me down to the beach?”

“I doubt I’m up to the task.”

“This, from the Legendary Guardian who beat Sin twice?”

“ _TYSH ED_!” I banged my fist on the bar, so hard it hurt.

She, unflappable as always, chuckled lowly as I wrung my fingers.

“Ow,” I said. “I take your point, I need some fresh air. But just for the record, you are evil.”

She took my arm and led me out. “I know.”

The sun was a little too bright, but the salty air felt good. We sat on the beach, watching the waves, which were probably a great deal more wavy for me than for her.

“I do love her as a friend,” I said quietly. “I hate that everyone thinks that I’m with her because I want to have sex with her. You think I don’t hear the comments, see the looks? Her father even had ‘the talk’ with me—you know, ‘I don’t condone this but it seems to make her happy, hurt my little girl and I’ll make you sorry you were ever born’?”

Lulu laughed. “That must have been uncomfortable.”

“I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, and he didn’t seem to believe me,” I said. “I guess if I had a daughter like Rikku, I wouldn’t believe some old man hanging around her was innocent of intention either. I would be suspicious of every male who came within fifty feet of her.”

“So you’re not in love with her. But you’ve spent so much time with her, you’ve started to erode the boundaries between you. Your lives got intertwined, more deeply than most people who aren’t romantically linked.”

“Hmm.” I leaned back in the sand, not willing to confirm or deny this.

“Do you think she might be in love with you?”

I laughed, startled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s no less legitimate than asking if you were in love with her. She’s young; she might not be able to differentiate between friendship-attachment and romantic-attachment.”

“Lulu…” I propped myself up on my hands. “Lulu, if she wants something, there is nothing on Spira that can stand in her way. If she wanted me, we would all know it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” I shook my head. “She decided for some reason she had to go back in _time_ and she did it. There is nothing that girl cannot do if she sets her mind to it. That’s what worries me—she’s got something in mind, and I don’t know what it is. And she wouldn’t tell me.”

“What do you think she could be looking for?”

“I wish I knew! I could stop worrying if I just _knew_.” I sighed. “I need to get my mind off this, I’m getting nowhere.”

“When did she decide to go to Baaj?”

“When we were on Bikanel.”

“Do you think she found something there that led her to Baaj?”

“Probably, but what? There’s so much going on there, how would I know what it was she found? And how is this helping me get my mind off it?”

“Just a thought.”

“The last thing I need to do right now is spend any more time worrying about Rikku. It’s time I… where is Wakka? Wasn’t he with us earlier?”

She laughed. “He left hours ago. They’re repairing some of the bridges up by the falls today.”

“ _Tysh_ , I am _really_ drunk.”

“Look on the bright side: you won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”

But I did.

* * *

In the morning I decided to do everything in my power to forget Rikku, so nursing a Sin-sized hangover I went to hammer nails. It was the most excruciating distraction I could have possibly imagined, and it did the trick.

“Gonna teach you to surf tomorrow,” Wakka told me.

I laughed. “Absolutely not.”

“Gonna get you out of those robes and into some shorts, and we’ll catch some waves,” said Wakka.

“Not going to happen,” I said firmly.

“Legendary Guardian’s afraid of a little surf, huh? Well, I don’t blame you, it can get pretty rough around here.”

“I’m not taking the bait, Wakka.”

“Wow, he really is scared,” Datto chimed in.

“Who’d have thought it, huh?” said Letty. “Wait’ll my kids hear this, they’ll never believe that Sir Auron is more of a coward than my youngest.”

“Frio’s surfing now?” said Keepa. “How old is he, six?”

“Five,” Letty said proudly. “Ow! Watch that joist, Datto!”

“Sorry,” said Datto.

“Well, not everyone’s as brave as your bunch,” said Wakka pointedly.

I chuckled. “Say what you like, I am not getting on a surfboard.”

* * *

“Wakka tells me he’s teaching you to surf in the morning,” said Yuna excitedly over dinner.

“He’s dreaming,” I said.

She chuckled. “I’d like to see it.”

“You and everyone else on the bridge team,” I said.

“I remember last year when we taught Rikku how to surf. Do you remember? She was absolutely determined.”

I sighed.

“Oh. Sorry.” She looked down at her plate. “It’s… it’s so strange. I’m not used to seeing just you. I know that’s unfair of me.”

“No hard feelings. I’d like to talk about something else. I was thinking of visiting Luca, after this. I would love for you to join me.”

“Me? Not Wakka?”

“Why not? I know you like the quiet of Besaid, but there’s so much going on in Luca right now.”

“I’m not ready.”

I caught her low tone and nodded. “If you need someone to talk to…”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m just not… ready to leave Besaid yet. I need more time.”

I gazed on her with sympathy in my heart. Two young women, caught up in grief, recovering from the near-end of the world. It was hard not to see the parallels with Rikku, and it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I’d had my fill of grief and sadness. That must be the explanation for what I said next:

“Then come see me fall off a surfboard tomorrow.”

She lit up, and I put my head in my hands.

* * *

Whatever shame I had left got wiped away in the legendary Besaid surf. I enjoyed myself far more than I will ever admit to anyone, and laughed more than I had in months.

Bruised, battered, soaked, and mildly triumphant, I didn’t have to pay for a single drink the next night. The generosity of the Besaid Aurochs knocked me off my legs, but they carried me to the Youth League Lodge on my surfboard like a warrior on his shield, singing off-key all the way.

In the middle of the night I woke up, tossing and turning. I realized a week had passed. I had spent half of it trying to forget Rikku and the other half succeeding all too well. I sighed, and contemplated for about an hour waiting another week before descending back into that slimy pit of a temple.

No. It was a good thing I quashed that idea. Another week would have been much, much too late.

_I’ll take Yuna with me. She’ll leave Besaid for Rikku._


	10. Time to Depart

“Of course,” said Yuna, and ran to her bedroom. She came back, beaming, holding a sphere. “I’ve got a doozy for our favorite Al Bhed sphere hunter!”

“What is it?” I said, reaching for it.

She snatched it away. “Ah, ah! This is for _Rikku_.”

I beamed.

“Let’s see if Lulu or Wakka want to come,” she said. “The more the merrier, right? And it sounds like that place needs some merry. Not to mention my cousin.”

* * *

Wakka elected to stay behind; the bridges were nearing completion. Lulu and Yuna made great company for an otherwise rather dismal voyage.

Their stories of settled life on the island struck me with bittersweetness. Travel had infected my feet, possibly permanently, but the way they spoke of home made me think how nice it would be to sleep in the same bed night after night.

“This place hasn’t changed much,” said Lulu as we sailed into Baaj’s oppressive gloom.

Yuna shivered and rubbed her arms. “I can’t believe people _live_ here.”

“Mm,” I said, my heart sinking once more to where it had been when I left. I remembered all too clearly how it had felt to see Rikku, that last day, and I didn’t like to think of feeling that way again.

Niven met the boat at the dock. He looked surprised to see us.

“Why, ah, High Summoner Yuna! And Sir Auron, and Guardian Lulu!” said Niven. “What an… ah… unexpected honor!” His hands flapped gleefully. “To what do we owe this… ah… ah… honor?”

“We’re here to see Rikku,” said Yuna.

“Rikku?” Niven frowned. “But… she left three days ago.”

Suddenly the island seemed a lot colder. Icy cold.

“What did she find, right before she left?” I said.

“What?” he said.

“The last sphere she looked at—what was it?” I said.

“I… ah… I’m not sure. We… we could ask the preservationists who were in the stacks at the time…” he said.

I climbed out of the boat so fast Niven skittered back. “Yes. Let’s.”

No one knew. No one so much as knew where she’d been looking. I wasn’t about to go through those stacks on a wild goose chase, not even knowing what I was seeking.

We re-boarded the boat to head back to Besaid. I stood in the prow, gripping the rail.

“Auron?” said Yuna.

“Hmm,” I said, eyes fixed on the endless horizon.

“I’m worried about her too,” said Yuna.

“Are you going to Bikanel?” said Lulu, on my other side.

I didn’t answer.

“Auron…” Yuna’s bare foot nudged mine. I became aware how convulsively I was tapping it.

“I don’t know,” I said, my jaw tight.

My mind emblazoned repeatedly my memory of finding her collapsed in Yunalesca’s chamber, all alone and near death. Rikku had a history of acting first and thinking later, if at all, when she was set on something. With no back-up plan.

_Unless I’m supposed to be her back-up plan_ , I thought resentfully, but then remembered how she’d looked when she’d sent me away. _No. She didn’t want me there. And I think she didn’t want me there because she knew I wouldn’t approve of whatever it was she was planning._

By the time we got back to Besaid, I had decided. I took the next boat to Bikanel. Yuna was torn, but in the end decided to stay on Besaid with Lulu.

“Auron… I think she’ll be all right,” said Yuna. “She’s Rikku. Sometimes she can be impulsive, but she’s stronger than anyone I know.”

“You may be right,” I said, not really believing it.

“Good luck,” said Lulu.

“Thank you,” I said, my eyes already on the horizon again.

_I could really use that airship…_

* * *

Tromping around in the desert heat did nothing to improve my state of mind. Brother found out I was back in camp and tracked me down.

“You’ve returned!” he cried exultantly. “You’ve reconsidered our offer. You’ve parted ways with…”

“I’m looking for anyone who can tell me what Rikku was looking at the day we were here,” I cut him off, in no mood. “Any records of the spheres she found or looked at, anyone who might have mentioned a sphere in Baaj Temple.”

Brother looked taken aback. I relented.

“I will ask around. Did you find that airship?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What? Really?” I wasn’t expecting that. “How much money do you need to get it in working order?”

“Well…” His voice took on a wheedling tone.

I grabbed him by the suspenders and bodily lifted him. “Do not con me. Not today. Your sister may be in danger. I need a way to locate her quickly once I find out where she went and why.”

“Hey, hey, why don’t we all take a chill pill?” said Gippal, jogging up.

“My sister?” squeaked Brother.

I set him down. “Just tell me how much, and I will make it happen. I do not have time for bargaining or bullshit.”

Brother named an exorbitant amount. I glared at him. He held up his hands, backing up a step. “I swear! You can talk to Buddy, he can show you the list of parts and labor we need!”

I handed over the cash. Brother tried to hug me, babbling effusive thanks. I gently pushed him away. “Go!”

“Is something the matter, Sir Auron?” said Gippal, oozing calm.

“I need to talk to anyone who talked to Rikku the day we were here, and records of any spheres she found or looked at,” I said.

He sucked in air over his teeth. “That’s a pretty tall order, even for the Legendary Guardian. We don’t keep records that detailed.”

“Then I would appreciate any help you could offer in asking around,” I said. “Otherwise, I will do it on my own.”

“Let it never be said I didn’t do my duty by Rikku’s friend,” said Gippal. “Of course I’ll help.”

I looked sidelong at him. “You… care about her?”

“Maybe not as much as you, but yes, I do. Also I owe her, big time. Don’t ask.” His voice was sharp. I didn’t. We went around the camp and asked everyone we could find who had seen and talked to Rikku that day.

“Is this everyone who was there?” I said.

Gippal shook his head. “There are some further afield who might have seen her. As I said, we don’t keep detailed records of who was where, when.”

“Further afield?” I said, heart sinking.

He eyed my robes, probably thinking much the same thing Rikku thought when I first suggested Bikanel—as I now desperately wished I hadn’t.

“Canteens,” I said. “Then we go.”

* * *

“ _NHADALA_!” Gippal had to scream over roar of the welding torch the scantily clad Al Bhed woman was using on a broken-down fan vehicle, next to a second one. At last the woman heard him or saw him waving frantically, shut off the torch, and lifted her helmet visor. She climbed out of the contraption as we approached.

“Did you by any chance talk to Rikku a couple of weeks ago when she came through?” said Gippal.

“Yeah,” said Nhadala.

“Did you tell her anything about a sphere in Baaj Temple?” I said.

“You mean the one about the fayth?” she said.

“What one about the fayth?” I said.

“It was just a rumor, I don’t know if it’s true,” she said.

“Tell me!” I snapped. She looked taken aback. “My apologies. This is very important.”

“I heard from someone at one of the other digs that they’d heard of a sphere in Baaj that talked about the creation of the fayth,” said Nhadala. “Like, how the fayth were made. It belonged to Jyscal Guado’s wife, apparently, and that’s why it wound up in Baaj. So I heard.”

“Huh. Weird. Why would Rikku want that?” said Gippal. “There are no fayth anymore.”

_That’s why_ , I thought. It felt like the sand gave way beneath me and the world stood ready to swallow me down into a pit of panic.

“Sir Auron?” said Gippal.

“I need to get back to the docks, immediately,” I said.

“Nhadala, can I take your fansled? I’ll bring it back here once I’ve dropped him off,” said Gippal.

She nodded and pulled her visor down, climbing back into the broken sled. Gippal and I ran to the working vehicle.

“Is Rikku in trouble?” he said.

“She may be,” I said, unwilling to voice the awful thoughts I was having.

“What can I do?” he said.

“Get me to the dock, and tell Buddy and Brother to come find me immediately as soon as the airship is ready,” I said.

He nodded, cranked up the fans, and we were off.

I remembered the longest run of my life, to get to the Chamber of the Fayth in Yevon Dome. I suspected this one would be even longer. My chest felt like it was bound up in a cage of iron.

_Where would you go?_ I thought. _I wish I believed in something, anything, that could give me a sign of where you are. Whatever fayth sent you back in time… long gone now, all the dreaming fayth._

_Dreaming._

_I really hope you’re not planning what I think you’re planning._

_I really hope you haven’t already succeeded._

_Tysh ed, Rikku._

I barked a laugh.

“What?” Gippal yelled over the fans.

“I know where she went. If she’s doing what I think she’s doing.” I remembered her forced smile, her tear-filled eyes, hugging her goodbye in the fog at the dock, and my stomach turned over.

* * *

Gippal arranged a boat to take me to Zanarkand. A frustratingly long voyage. I paced the deck until exhaustion took me over, and granted me a few hours of restless sleep haunted by nightmares blended with memories.

_“Rikku, wake up!”_

_She thrashed awake in my arms, eyes wide, gasping._

_“You were screaming in your sleep,” I said._

_She looked up at me, touched my face. Her hand was shaking. Her eyes focused._

_“Are you all right?” I said._

_“F-fine,” she stammered. She lay back down, and turned on her side, away from me._

_After a few nights, she started dosing herself with sleeping powder. I think she thought I didn’t notice her taking more and more, and then taking it with sake._

_I noticed._

Head spinning, I came up on deck for fresh air. I remembered seeing her at the rail of so many boats, early on in our sphere hunting, turning her face into the spray. I’d scoffed at her.

_“Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it, old man,” she said, jabbing me in the ribs._

At some point it had switched. I was the one leaning into the rain of water, and she was the one turning away. I was the one basking in the sun, she was the one heading into darkness. I was the one embracing life, she was the one…

I stared out at the moonless night, the stars meeting the pitch-dark sea, restless in its sleep.

_How did it all begin?_ I wondered helplessly, casting my mind back over the past year and a half, and then further. _When did it start?_

* * *

Listen to my story.

There may not be much time left.

In fact, it may already be too late.


	11. Fayth

The captain made landfall on the shore where Lord Braska and Jecht had died, fighting Sin eleven years ago.

_“I don’t want to lose you too,” I said in Rikku’s ear, holding her back from attacking the monstrous Sin looming over Lord Braska. “Don’t leave me all alone.”_

I ran inland. This time instead of running into the dome, I ran the other way, heading up toward Mount Gagazet. I ran. I cleaved fiends out of my way, frantic.

_“Don’t leave me all alone!” she screamed at me, in Yevon Dome, trying to drag me away from my hate-fueled quest for vengeance against Yunalesca. “That’s what you said to me, isn’t it? Well, now it’s my turn! I lost them too! I don’t want to lose you!”_

The fiends were never-ending. I kept looking up at the broken face of the mountain staring down on the ruins of Zanarkand.

_“Once Yevon’s defeated,” said Tidus, “the dream will end.”_

_Rikku whirled. “What dream?”_

_“The dream of the fayth,” said Tidus. “They have been sleeping for hundreds of years, dreaming of Zanarkand and its people as they were a thousand years ago. My old man was brought out of that dream to help Spira. So was I.”_

“RRRR!” I screamed, taking out all my frustrated helplessness on the snow wolf in front of me. Pyreflies swirled in my eyes, blocking my vision. I rounded the bend and there she was.

Rikku crouched by the cratered face of the mountain where masses of fayth had once lain side by side, fixed and dreaming, overlooking the ruins of the land they were dreaming back into its glory days. She was huddled over something.

I dropped my sword and ran to her. She whirled at the noise, lifting her Godhand, still crouched. I halted.

“Rikku,” I said.

“Go _away_ ,” she snarled.

I looked from her to the mixture-filled pestle she was holding, to the sphere actively displaying static text in the air. How to make a fayth. I took a step toward her.

“I said go _away_!” she said.

“Don’t do this,” I said. “Please don’t.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“That’s right, I don’t,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “Help me understand. Tell me.”

“Piss off!” she said. “I don’t want you here!”

“Not on your life,” I said. “I will not let you die.”

She laughed. “It’s not death. Not really.”

“Yes, it is, Rikku. You will be just as dead as Jecht was when Yunalesca made him a fayth.”

“Jecht! Jecht didn’t die! He was a dream, Auron! And so was Tidus! Don’t you understand? The fayth were tired. They wanted to stop dreaming. They’d been dreaming for such a long time. But how long would I have to dream? The lifetime of two people? Just two people, Auron. They would be just as alive as they ever were. Wouldn’t you want to see Jecht again? Wouldn’t you want to see Yuna happy, with Tidus?”

“No!” I shouted. “Not at the expense of your life!”

“What life? This life? My life?” She laughed hollowly. “My life! My life sucks! I can’t stop dreaming, and they’re all awful dreams! Even when I’m awake, it’s still there! I’ve finally found a way to bring two of them back. And that is worth everything! It’s worth giving up my _creddo_ life for theirs!”

“NO IT ISN’T! DAMN IT RIKKU!”

She lifted the pestle to her lips. I ran at her, grabbed it from her and hurled it with all my strength off the cliff.

She screamed, an unholy animalistic noise, and attacked me.

It was the fight of a lifetime. She fought like she was actually going to kill me. She got in several hits before I recovered my sword and could start fending her off. Even fighting Yunalesca I don’t think I’d ever seen her so infuriated. She knew my every move, and she seemed far more invested in harming me than I was in defending her blows. She disarmed me. My sword went sailing, twisting end over end, after her pestle. I stood unarmed before her, exhausted. I had had it. I was not going to resort to magic. I spread my hands.

“Take my life,” I said. “You went back in time ten years to save it. It’s yours to take.”

She rocked on her heels, and I knew I had got it right.

I waited, arms wide.

She crumpled to the ground. I lowered my arms, but didn’t dare approach. Instead I slid around behind her and picked up the sphere. Her head snapped up as I shattered it against the rock. She howled. She folded in on herself, sobbing so hard she started coughing and choking.

I drew closer and knelt down. As I put my arms around her she beat at me, but with her fists, not the Godhand. Eventually she gave up and just shook in my arms. Her skin was freezing cold where it touched my bare shoulder inside my jacket. She was not dressed for the weather, and skinnier even than when I’d left her on Baaj. I hoisted her into my arms. The scar of the fayth had left a cave out of the wind and snow, and that was as far as I thought I could carry her in my exhausted state.

At the back of the cave I set her down and took off my jacket to draw around her violently trembling body. Her sobs were losing power, but her shaking remained frighteningly strong. I pulled her back into my arms and rocked her.

“I am still pissed at you,” I murmured. “Not for trying to kill me—I don’t blame you, I’m a pain in the _ycc_ —but for trying to kill you. For thinking that was the only way out of all this hurt.”

“I dream you're still dead,” she whispered in my ear. “Every night. Every night I remember how you looked before I went back in time, and the memory I saw in Yevon Dome of Yunalesca killing you, and that day… that day…” She drew a shaky breath. I patiently rocked her until the words came again.

“Back then, on the airship, I couldn’t sleep one night, and no one else was awake, so I just kept pacing up and down the corridors, and then I found you,” she said. “I swear you looked right at me. I can still smell the sake, and see the pyreflies swirling all around you and through your body, the scar over your right eye. Days and nights afterward I saw that vision, waking and sleeping. I couldn’t get it out of me. I wanted to kill Yunalesca, but by that time she was already dead, and I felt so helpless, so helpless. There was nothing I could do to undo your death ten years ago. I went on a rampage in Yevon Dome. I wanted to kill everything. And I screamed and raged and that’s where the Fayth of Knowledge found me.”

She lifted her head. In the pale sunlight filtering to the back of the cave I saw her reddened eyes, her snotty blotchy face. She sniffled.

“The fayth sent me back in time to save you. But even after I did… I still had the dreams and memories! I thought they’d go away and they never did! How can I remember things that never happened? I miss Jecht and Braska and Tidus, but it’s not their deaths I dream about—it’s yours! I went crazy, Auron! I have memories that never happened and they won’t leave me alone! What more can I do?” She grabbed my black undershirt and shook me, desperate. “What more can I DO?!”

My heart went out to her, that desperate, pale face that had been silently wrestling with a terrifying nightmare she thought no one could understand. And now I finally understood why she wouldn’t tell me.

“Me,” I said. “It was me you were mourning, yet I was still alive.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And I don’t understand it! I mean, you drove me nuts! When… before I went back in time and saved you, you were a serious, stodgy, pain in the _ycc_! You smirked instead of laughed! You had no sympathy for a poor scared girl on the Thunder Plains! You were always standing around judging all of us from behind those stupid little sunglasses and that high collar you wore! And you sat around being _vilgehk_ DEAD!” She wailed anew and buried her head in my shoulder.

I stroked her hair. “So if you hated me so much, why did you travel ten years back in time to save me? You could have died, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” she muttered, muffled, into the shoulder she was soaking with her leaky face.

“So why, then?” I said.

She sighed, slumping in my arms, and lifted her head. “I don’t know.”

I lifted an eyebrow at her.

She shrugged and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I really don’t. At first I thought it was because you were just like me, angry and hotheaded when you challenged Yunalesca and she killed you. But I was naïve, and angry, and now I don’t even know anymore what I was thinking. _If_ I was thinking. I mean, now, obviously, I’d do it all over again, knowing how much I enjoy your specific brand of pain in the _ycc_ , even if you are turning into a kind of irritating high-on-life cheerful _tebcred_.” She glared at me. “Which is even more maddening alongside memories of the intolerable dead you I remember. But the more I know you now, the more mystified I am that the unsent Auron I met was someone I wanted so badly to save that I would go to those lengths and risk that much.” She sniffled again, hard, and swallowed.

“Maybe you saw my potential to not be a total asshole.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t that perspicacious, back then.”

“All of a year and a half ago.”

Her head hit my shoulder with a groan. “Feels like ten.”

I stroked her back and sighed. “With what you’ve been going through, that is understandable.”

“I don’t want to have nightmares anymore,” she said softly. “There’s no sleeping powder dose strong enough anymore that won’t kill me. That’s when I first thought about dying, and I’d been reading about the fayth that day, and I thought… what if, instead of dying, I changed the dream? Permanently? Instead of dreaming you dead every night and having the memories intruding on me every day, I could dream Tidus and Jecht back to life. All I had to do was find out how to turn someone into a fayth, without the aid of Yunalesca. I knew Seymour had done it with his mother, so I thought, why can’t I do it myself? I am, after all, the Amazing Rikku.” She half-heartedly punched the air, her face still sunk into my shoulder.

“I think we both need sleep. A lot of sleep,” I said. “Maybe instead of holding it all in, you could talk to me about it. Then, at least, you wouldn’t be alone, and if you ever get one of these harebrained ideas again you could run it past me and I could say ‘ _RAMM HU_! Let’s come up with some other solutions. The two of us. Together.’”

“Like what?” She lifted her head to wipe her whole face with one hand, and stared blearily at me. “Seriously, what can I do to get these memories that never happened to go away? I think it may be some side effect of the time travel, that maybe this is a permanent problem, because I lived through a different past.”

“Yes, but you’re here _now_ , and I am not dead.”

She nodded. “I keep telling myself that, and it doesn’t help.”

I took her hand and pressed it to my face. “Here. Touch. Not dead. Wake me up in the night and ask me if I’m dead. I guarantee I’ll tell you no.”

“Then we’ll _both_ be miserable and sleep-deprived.”

I sighed. “And both alive. …Maybe it will not always be this way. Maybe talking about it will help.”

She lifted an eyebrow at me.

I smiled tiredly. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else, all right? But not making you a fayth. Jecht and Tidus are gone, and that sucks, but that is it. There is a lot in this life that doesn’t suck, and there would be even more if I don’t have to worry about you ever, ever, ever, and I mean EVER, doing this again or thinking about this without immediately talking to me or Yuna or Lulu or, _ramm_ , even Kimahri about it. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed, Auron.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” She drew an ‘X’ on herself. “Cross my heart and hope to…” She saw my look and stopped with a wry grin. “All right, all right, bad joke.”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “You’re right, we should talk more often.”

“Yes.”

“Are your legs asleep yet?”

“Yes.”

She scrambled off my lap. I rubbed my legs, wishing the rest of me could join them, figuratively speaking. I leaned into the cave wall and closed my eyes.

“Oh, hey, a sphere,” she said.

“Mm,” I said.

“Wonder how long it’s been back here. It must have been under the fayth.”

My eyes popped open. “If it’s anything having to do with how to kill yourself you’re ordered to smash it to bits immediately.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, _dad_.”

I growled at her. She activated the sphere.

We watched it, dumfounded. Afterward, we looked at each other, and she played it again.

“Yunie has to see this,” Rikku murmured on the third watching.

“Are you sure? We don’t know what it means,” I said.

“She has to see this,” Rikku repeated. “She deserves to know this exists.”

I nodded. “Then we will show it to her.”

“What do you think it might mean, Auron?”

“I don’t care to speculate. I do not think it would help.”

Whatever she tried to say next was drowned out by the roar of an engine. High-pressure winds blasted in at us, and as we looked up a light snapped on, blinding us.

“Hey in there! Cozy?” called a familiar voice, over what sounded like a public address.

“What the _ramm_ is that?” said Rikku, clutching her Godhand and—to my amusement—moving so she was between me and it.

“I think it’s our ride,” I said.

It was.

* * *

“The sphere oscillo-finder is installed and functioning perfectly!” Buddy enthused.

“Great,” said Rikku tiredly. “Where’s the beds?”

“We managed to locate you through…” Buddy continued, oblivious, striding across the bridge of the airship Celsius to show them something.

“Beds,” I said sharply. “Now.”

“Oh… right,” said Buddy, looking hurt.

“We’ll have time for a tour later,” I said.

“All the time in Spira,” muttered Rikku. She was too tired to smile back at my grateful look.

We sacked out on bunks under the windows of the Celsius. Buddy promised us he’d take us to Besaid Island, but not disturb us. There was some Hypello in the cabin, babbling, but I’d lost the capacity to care. I waved him off and climbed tiredly into bed.

_I suppose_ , I thought as I lost consciousness, _this will be my bed for a while to come. I paid enough for it. Settled, but always on the move. Maybe this won’t be so bad._


	12. Sphere to End All Spheres

“Rikku!” Yuna ran to embrace her cousin. I smiled to see their hug linger.

“Hey, where ya been?” said Wakka, poking Rikku. “You missed one hell of a…”

“I’m glad to see you,” Yuna interrupted, pulling back to survey Rikku at arm’s length. “When we saw that airship land, we knew it had to be you! You sure know how to make an entrance.”

“We’ve brought you something.” Rikku took the sphere out of her satchel. “Found it on Mt. Gagazet.”

“I have something for you, too!” Yuna pulled her own sphere out of her sleeve, and the two exchanged spheres.

“Might want to watch yours first,” urged Rikku.

Yuna activated the sphere, and the four of us crowded round the display.

“No, I'm not sorry!” said a man in a cage, the spitting image of Tidus. “I haven't done anything wrong! I know you’re listening. If she was your girl, what would you do? How can you blame me for trying to use your weapon? It was the only way I could save the summoner! What would you do if you were me? Let me out!… I want to see her…” The image faded out.

I watched Yuna. She stared at the dormant sphere in her hands while Wakka babbled:

“What is this? What’s he doing? I mean, is that really him? Is that… is he… what’s going on?”

“We’re not sure,” said Rikku. “But… you wanna find out, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but…” said Wakka.

“Yes!” burst out of Yuna.

“Let’s go, then!” said Rikku, punching the air.

“Go where?” said Yuna.

“Well, that’s the tricky part,” said Rikku.

“We found the sphere on Mount Gagazet,” I said. “Kimahri may know more. We neglected to stop to ask him.”

“Whoa!” said Wakka. “Slow down, there! You sure you’re ready to just run off? Can’t you wait until we find out a little more first?”

“And just who’s supposed to do the finding out?” said Rikku. “Auron and I can’t do everything on our own, magnificent though we are.”

The Youth League stranger who’d been standing a little too close for comfort piped up, “Leave that to us! I'm sure Meyvn Nooj will agree to help. In fact, I volunteer to ask him myself!”

“Beat it, ya?” Wakka said to him.

“Understood! I shall return as soon as possible with a full report of our investigation!” said the man, saluting, and ran off. I shook my head.

“Look,” said Rikku. “I’d really like Yuna to come with us, and it sounds like she wants to go.”

“She can’t,” said Wakka.

“Why not?” said Rikku.

“Because she’s booked solid for three months, ya! And everybody wants to see her,” said Wakka.

I chuckled. “Isn’t it up to Yuna to decide?”

“Well… gee…” Wakka rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.

“I want…” said Yuna, and stopped. “I want…”

“C’mon, Yunie. Everyone’s getting to live their dreams and do what they want, and you have more of a right to that than anybody,” said Rikku. “It’s _your_ life.”

“I’ll go,” said Yuna.

“Yuna!” said Wakka.

“I know it’s selfish… but this is my story,” said Yuna, and snuck a glance at me. I nodded to her.

“I knew it!” said Rikku. “Didn’t I say? And Auron and I talked about it, and we’re getting new clothes in Luca in honor of an all-new sphere hunting team: the Gullwings.”

“Don’t look at us, the name came with the airship and the sphere oscillo-finder,” I said.

“Wait, you three! I’ll go get Lu!” Wakka ran down the path into the village. Yuna watched him go, then turned to us.

“Let’s leave!” she said. “Let’s leave right now!”

“That’s the spirit!” cried Rikku.

* * *

I had changed my mind about where my bunk would be, and claimed the small but private room in the cabin situated under the raised platform of bunks. It had a door, which I prized much more than space and a view. In the cramped quarters I divested myself for the last time of my monk robes.

_A new life._

I eyed my garment grid warily.

_A new mission._

I activated the Warrior dressphere.

_A new team._

It felt creepy to have clothes swirling around me, tightening, encasing my body, sliding over my skin.

_New ‘duds.’_

I rubbed my chin, eyeing critically my small mirror. I hopped up onto the bed to survey the lower half of me. A perfunctory rap at the door was followed by Rikku shoving it open and coming in. She whistled at my skintight black leather pants and sleeveless top, the studded leather sword holster on my back, and boots with more buckles than any sane man should need in a lifetime of belts and shoes.

I jumped down with a thud, staring at her outfit, or lack thereof. Endless ruffles of white sleeves, a hairdo that looked like it had been hit by dexterous lightning, a teeny tiny yellow bikini and the merest whisper of a little skirt, in the back of which I saw her underwear riding up.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to beat off amorous males with a stick for you,” I said dryly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. I have bad news and good news, stud,” she said, plopping her rear on my bunk.

“Shoot,” I said, sitting beside her.

She looked grave. “The bad news is, sphere hunting is finished. Over. Done. Kaput. Finito. No more.”

“And the good news?”

She produced a sphere. “This is because Yuna has given us the ultimate sphere, the sphere to end all spheres, that which makes all others obsolete and unnecessary, not to mention worthless, null, and void. I hold in my hands the most precious and valuable sphere ever discovered on Spira.”

I rolled my eyes. “What a build-up.”

“I’m perfectly serious. You’ll be dumbfounded by what is on this sphere, I _guarantee_ it.”

“Enough already, let’s have it.”

She activated the sphere. The display showed a jerky handheld sphere-recording of ocean waves. It zoomed in, jerked a bit, and then I saw…

I put a hand to my face with a loud sigh. “Yuna…”

Rikku rolled on the bunk, laughing. In the face of that laughter, so infectious to me, I grinned and soon started to chuckle myself. She sat up, her face beaming like I hadn’t seen since Yuna’s pilgrimage. I watched Rikku watching Yuna’s sphere recording of me surfing unsteadily off the Besaid coast, clad in a pair of Wakka’s loudest blue and electric yellow batiked swimming trunks, my arms flung wide in desperation.

Eventually Rikku managed to get her laughter under control, and we could hear Yuna’s tinny voice on the recording: “Wooooo! Oh yeah! Go AURON! Woohoo!”

“Anytime I think about unsent Auron,” said Rikku, “I just have to look at this. You’re so alive. Look at you! So alive.” Her eyes, fixed to the recording, shone. She glanced up at me with that sunny expression I’d missed so much.

“Thanks to you,” I said softly, just audible over the roaring surf on the recording and Yuna’s yelp of ‘oh no!’ as I wiped out.

She inhaled, and let a deep satisfied sigh out, holding my gaze. “…Ditto.”

* * *

**AUTHOR’S NOTE** : 

[If someone you love is suicidal](http://metanoia.org/suicide/whattodo.htm)  
[If you are suicidal](http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/)  
[Other resources](http://mentalillnessmouse.tumblr.com/post/21961172409/accepting-help-is-brave-hotlines-crisis-lines)

Sometimes stuff sucks and sometimes what is ‘supposed’ to help doesn’t help. You deserve to be heard without judgment by a compassionate witness who will sit with you no matter what, even if you can’t explain why it hurts.


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